Dirty Dozen – Bryan Fox

January 03, 2008

Birthdate: 9/11/1983

Hometown: Ramona, California.

Sponsors: K2, Quiksilver, Active, Dakine.

The dusty outer limits of San Diego County don’t usually cultivate top-shelf snowboarders like Fox. This regional handicap didn’t stand in Bryan’s way, it just made him want it that much more. Everyone has to earn their turns, some just have to wake up earlier and drive a bit farther. A simple man, Bryan likes good metal, the color black, and he loves snowboarding with a passion. Scotty Wittlake expounds, “Just as there is more to life than snowboarding, there is more to_ snowboarding than the tricks in those five-second clips or single _framed photographs you see in videos and magazines, there is the act of _just going snowboarding. The way somebody views the activity that they have a _passion for says a great deal about them as a person. When after sponsors, money, media_ coverage, etc., they still don’t forget to at least sometimes find the simple _pleasure in doing something just for the pure sake of doing it, without the_ motives of some sort of payback or possible recognition. Bryan Fox is one of_ those people who truly does find his pleasure in simply riding his_ snowboard.”-E.L.

How did you make it to where you are now?I worked at an Active in high school and got super into snowboarding. Once I graduated I moved to Mt. Hood with (Josh) Mills and we lived in my car and snowboarded every day. All we cared about was snowboarding, learning tricks, and being dirt-bag bums. Then I started riding with Scotty and Louie (Fountain) and they both helped me out a bunch. Louie got me on K2, and Scotty talked to Justin and Pierre at Neoproto about me filming for the movie. They’d never seen me snowboard or anything, it was all off Scotty’s word. That definitely opened doors for me, just being friends with them and snowboarding with them-they made it happen for me.

What scares you?I’m scared that kids aren’t gonna have the opportunity to love snowboarding as much as I did when I was fifteen. Kids are gonna think that the X Games is snowboarding, and it’s not. F-k the X Games and the energy-drink sponsors. It seems like it might not be an outlet anymore, it might be one of those things like baseball or soccer, something that people do but don’t really care about. For me it was an escape from all that.

What’s more important-contests or filming?Filming a part for sure, obviously I’m going to say that. I’ve never cared about contests at all. I couldn’t tell you who won anything two years ago, but I could list off tricks in someone’s video part from ’98. I feel like contests are the opposite of why I snowboard. Someone told me once that only people who don’t do well in contests don’t like contests, so I guess she meant I was a loser. I don’t have anything to prove to three random judges about whether my 1080 was better than Joe Schmo’s-I just don’t really care.

What’s your idea of a successful snowboard career?Just having a career in snowboarding is a success in itself, because there’s so many people who want to do it. Scotty, Mikey LeBlanc, Gigi Rà…f, Jeremy Jones-those dudes have done it right. Producing good, entertaining parts year after year.

What direction do you think snowboarding is headed in?Down the tubes. Hopefully not, but that’s the way its looking right now. I probably care too much about it. I just love snowboarding so much, it’s given me a lot.

What has snowboarding taught you?In snowboarding there are lots of opportunities to do shit that you’re going to regret. It’s taught me to think about your moves ’cause they matter. Think about who you ride for, what you’re doing, and what image you’re portraying. I’m not anti-capitalism, there’s just a line that needs to be drawn. Promoting shit that’s irrelevant to snowboarding solely for a paycheck is pretty f-ked in my eyes.

What is the “job” (GH1)part of your job?When I’m snowboarding it’s just snowboarding, I’m not thinking that I hhave to do this because it’s my job. The job part is dealing with contracts. I don’t have an agent, so I deal with my all my sponsors. And it’s a job because you have to produce, but that’s not what I care about. I’d be doing this if I were getting paid or not. I would probably be snowboarding more if it wasn’t my job.

Is snowboarding professionally what you thought it would be?No it’s not. There are a lot of people who are really fake-ass D-bags. There’s a lot of shit that I just don’t think is that cool, and it seems like people don’t care enough about the actual snowboarding part of stuff.

What’s next for you in snowboarding?Probably just the X Games and an energy drink sponsor. Maybe a phone sponsor and a watch sponsor too, maybe a sponsor for car audio stuff or some other shit that has nothing to do with snowboarding-Target here I come! No, for me it’s just the same shit-just snowboarding.